Mother Hen

You know, I'm beginning to think that there's just no chance in this world for me to actively dislike anyone. Every time I find a nice, loathe-able person, -poof- they come out with something that makes it impossible to dislike them.

What I found out about Squeaky last night:
She has a kid.
Her parents kicked her out when she was 14.
Because she was an alcoholic.
Because her stepfather had been physically and sexually abusing her for EIGHT YEARS.
And her mother wouldn't believe it.
She was repeatedly raped while in residential housing.
The day she got kicked out of/left her most recent placement, she found out that her grandfather had died a week before and no one in her family had bothered to let her know.
Last night she called her mother for the first time in a few months....
...and found out that during those months, her mother has been diagnosed with MS, is now crippled and in a wheelchair, and has about two months to live.

And this girl is NINETEEN YEARS OLD. (Barely--her birthday just passed last month.)

Tim came up to my room last night on his way to take a shower. "I just want to...you know, thank you for being understanding about this whole thing," he said.

"Dude," I told him. "You know I am the hardest-headed person in the world, and I can hold a grudge with the best of them, but that girl is just a BABY, really."

She's apparently going to go stay with her son's father for a while; as I told her, I'm in no position to be taking on anybody til I know whether or not I'm going to have a roof over my own head in a week or two. She can babysit her son and the father's other two kids while the father is at work. They don't get along well, but it's just a case of getting on each others' nerves--nothing violent or dangerous. Which is good--I think she's had enough of that.

When I think of myself at nineteen, and then think of what Squeaky has been through at the same age...It just makes me want to cry, really.